I chose to write this post after watching the Hungry for ChangeDocumentary. It’s really inspiring and eye-opening, watch it on Netflix!

It’s no secret, I love everything healthy and believe that eating whole, organic foods will benefit not only your body but also your soul and how you feel about yourself.

Often, when I say I eat a smoothie, an egg and greek yoghurt with chia seeds for breakfast every morning people’s eye grow wide, they look surprised and say to me “Oh, you’re that kind of girl…you’re so healthy! I could never eat like you do.”

This answer always makes me sad. It’s been hard for me in these past years to understand why eating healthy isn’t more common if it fits your budget. After all, eating the right nutrients will make your skin glow beautifully, your hair shiny, your nails strong…so why not go for it?

Most of the time, the answer is we’re used to eating the less healthy way, and we can’t help but love it. A few years ago, I was in the same situation: addicted to a lot of extra-sugary pre-made foods like sugar-packed cereals, chocolate-chip cookies… The adjustments I decided to make to my routine were hard to apply because my body craved these foods all the time!

The addiction to these foods is made possible by the companies who make these products. They fill them with ingredients we can’t really pronounce they’ll know will make our bodies crave them and ultimately make us the consumer addicted to these foods … so we decide to buy more of them. Furthermore, these products are often filled with calories but don’t have the nutrients that your body and mind need to function at their best – they’re filled with empty calories!

After seeing the effects eating the bad stuff had on my body, I decided to eat healthier progressively! Habits don’t change overnight, but the more I read on the subject and tried to apply change, the more my cravings changed as I changed my diet and the more I was convinced to stay on this healthy path. After all:

…And I want to be a colorful mix of healthy foods, not an artificial bundle of things I don’t understand!! Don’t you?

Back to the reason I decided to write this in the first place. The Hungry for Change documentary really explains why we should eat healthy!

Here are some of the facts that really stood out to me watching it:

1 – You won’t burn much fat when you start exercising if you haven’t done a detox beforehand. You’ve heard of detox smoothies and juices right?

Why?

Your body surrounds toxins with fat so that they can’t cause damage. Therefore, your body wants to keep the fat to protect you. The best way to lose this fat is to create the condition for the body to cleanse and make the toxins stored in fat water soluble so they can be sweated off.

The first step towards a healthy body is detoxifying. You can do so by eating:

– Green vegetables

– Gelatinous plant foods (chia seeds, aloe vera, sea weeds): they absorb the toxins, bind those and past those out with it. They also help clean out the liver.

The simplest way to detox is by juicing. Juicing makes the food easy to absorb and will make you consume far more vegetables at a time. Plus, homemade juices are delicious! Here are 3 recipes of juices to get you started from The Awesome Green Blog.

The bottom line is you should continually eat in a way that makes your feel amazing and beautiful, not temporarily so. You’re on a lifelong journey of eating good food :) So get cooking! Know what’s in your food!

And don’t forget to watch this superb documentary to learn more and feel extra convinced!

Just chop the cauliflower in a food processor until it becomes very fine. Then put the cauliflower in boiling water and lower the heat to simmer. Cook for 3 minutes and you’re done! Mix it with your favorite ingredients.

Lunch & Dinner

The Warm Cauliflower Couscous Saladincorporates my new star ingredient (cauliflower couscous). It’s fresh, yet comforting, salty and smoochy. The combination of flavors is out of this world. Imagine tasting warm cauliflower with melting feta cheese and various herbs…delicious!

To make the recipe a little faster, I didn’t toast the pumpkin seeds. I also replaced the peas with edamame which worked very well with the rest of the ingredients.

The Creamy Broccoli Soup was my perfect winter blues remedy! What first drew me to this recipe was its simplicity. It requires no fancy ingredients! And the topping makes it pretty original. I followed the soup recipe and topped each serving with black beans mixed with olive oil and lemon juice. Delicious!

Okay I admit it, I’m a total foodie. I love spending Sunday mornings skimming through cookbooks and reading my beloved food blogs to figure out what I’ll eat the coming week.

But even if I looove food, I don’t want to spend my entire life cooking! During the working-week, I want to see friends, workout, watch tv series, sleep…I’m also on a budget and avoid spoiling food at all costs! This means cooking different recipes with some of the same ingredients.

I never thought cooking would require so much planning when I left my parent’s house to live with a roommate, in my tiny charming apartment…but it does! If you’re in the same situation as I am, here is what I learned about planning for food. These tips allow me to love what I eat every day.

Meal planning tips for the healthy foodie girl:

– Take a weekend afternoon to grocery shop and to prepare one main meal and breakfast snacks. Make 4-5 portions of main meals so you’ll have enough for the entire week (lunch and dinner). Take one night off early in the week to cook your other main meal.

– Make 5 boiled eggs on the weekend. Eat one before leaving for work every day along with a tall glass of water. This will wake your body up.

– Always make two smoothies at a time and freeze them. Put the smoothie in the fridge the night before drinking so it defrosts overnight.

– Always have on hand: cooked quinoa, couscous or chickpeas, dry fruits, almonds, vegetables and fruits to mix and match in salads or snacks.

And now…here is my first weekly meal plan for you below!

Breakfast

1 boiled egg

1 out-the-door chia power doughnut from the Oh She Glows Cookbook baked into smaller muffins (makes 7 muffins instead of 6 doughnuts). See the recipe here.

With this protein combo, you won’t be hungry until lunchtime!

1 smoothie with blueberries and banana: I love drinking a smoothie at around 10:30AM for a healthy sugar kick…keeps me going until lunch!

This recipe makes 2 smoothies:

– 2 cups soy milk

– 1 cup spinach

– 1 avocado

– 1 banana

– 1 cup blueberries

– 1 teaspoon maple syrup

Lunch and Dinner

1 eat your greens detox soup from the Oh She Glows Cookbook. This soup was refreshing and super comforting. See the recipe here.

1 Thai Veggie Quinoa Bowl from Avocado Pesto. My love for quinoa knows no boundaries! This bowl has a sharp thai taste and is very quick to make. On the weekend, I filled pita bread with it, it tasted delicious!

That’s it! Of course…I always have veggie-nuts snacks and dark chocolate after dinner!